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table beside the bed. He continued to eye her as he closed up the bag. “Let’s just say I won the lottery,” he said arrogantly.
    She perceptibly stiffened at his words as though she’d been slapped flush in the face. For a moment she felt as though she would topple right over in a dead faint. Had Duane actually been behind all of this? Were he and Jackson in this together? She could not have envisioned a more unlikely pair. It couldn’t possibly be. She quickly recovered and crossed her arms. “Bull. Where’d you get it, Duane?”
    “Let’s just say it’s a real good reason to be nice to me and to keep your mouth shut.”
    Angrily pushing him from the room, she locked the door. She changed into jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt and then quickly packed an overnight bag. When she unlocked and threw open the door, Duane hadn’t budged; the bag was still clutched in his hand. She moved quickly past him, opened the door to the bathroom, and scooped up a wriggling Lisa in one arm; the dirty linen and overnight bag in her other hand, she headed for the front door.
    “Where you going, LuAnn?”
    “None of your damned business.”
    “How long you gonna be pissed about this? I didn’t get mad at you for kicking me in the balls, did I? I done already forgot about it, in fact.”
    She whirled around for a second. “Duane, you have got to be the dumbest person on the face of this earth.”
    “Is that right? Well who do you think you are? Why, if it weren’t for me, you and Lisa wouldn’t even have a damned place to stay. I took you in or you wouldn’t have nothing.” He lit up another cigarette but warily kept out of range of her fist. He scrunched the match out on the tattered carpet. “So maybe instead of bitching all the time, you oughta try being nice to me.” He held up the paper bag stuffed with cash. “There’s plenty more where this came from, too, little girl. I ain’t gonna be living in this craphole much longer. You best think about it. You best think real good about that. I ain’t taking crap from you or anybody else anymore. You hear me?”
    She opened the front door. “Duane, I’ll start being nice to you right now. You know how? I’m gonna leave before I kill you!” Lisa started to cry at her mother’s angry tones as though she thought they were directed at her. LuAnn kissed the little girl and cooed in her ear to calm her down.
    Duane watched LuAnn march across the muddy yard, admiring her soft behind in the tight jeans. For a moment he looked around for Shirley, but she had evidently already made a run for it, naked and all.
    “I love you, babe,” he yelled after LuAnn, grinning.
    “Go to hell, Duane.”

C HAPTER SIX
    T he mall was far busier than it had been during her visit the day before. LuAnn was grateful for the crowds as she made a wide berth around the office she had visited earlier, though she did glance in its direction as she passed by. Through the glass panes on either side of the door it seemed dark inside. She supposed if she tried the door, it would be locked. She didn’t imagine that Jackson would have hung around long after she had left, and she assumed she had been his sole “client.”
    She had called in sick to work and spent a sleepless night at a friend’s house alternating between staring at a full moon and Lisa’s tiny mouth as it randomly produced smiles, grimaces, and every expression in between while the little girl slept heavily. She had finally decided not to make a decision on Jackson’s proposal until she had some more information. One conclusion had come fairly rapidly: She would not go to the police. She could prove nothing, and who would believe her? There was no upside potential to such a move and at least fifty million reasons against it. For all her sense of right and wrong, she could not get past that one inescapable temptation: Incredible, sudden wealth was perhaps staring her in the face. She felt guilty that the decision wasn’t more black